My Only Sunshine

The Mushrooms

Bug has three BFFs at school.  They eat together, play together, email each other, and have sleep overs as often as they can talk the parents into it.  They call themselves the "mushrooms" and love to make each other little crayon pictures of mushrooms and things like that.  They each have a color for their own mushroom persona.

Bug and I decided to make necklaces for each of the mushrooms in their colors.  While Bug was stringing beads onto Stretch Magic I was making little mushroom charms out of polymer clay.

 

The green one is for Bug.  I didn't want a head pin to show at the bottom so I used an eye pin stuck almost to the bottom of the mushroom and then added a drop of jewelry glue to hold the pin in after the curing was done.

 

The beaded cord matches the 'shrooms and is stretchy so it will fit over the kids' heads.  This is the first time I have used Stretch Magic and so far it is holding up really well.  They have been wearing their mushrooms for a couple of weeks now with no breakage.  These are 4th graders; they aren't the most gentle jewelry owners.

 

I tied the cord in two knots to secure it and applied a drop of jewelry glue between the knots.  The place where the cord is tied off is not noticeable at all.

I've been having fun with the polymer clay the last couple of weeks.  I got burned out on it when I was working with it every day for my knitting needle business.  I guess it has been long enough to get back to enjoying it.

Here's a pic of the 'shrooms in their necklaces.

Swim Bug

So obviously my kids are involved in lots of stuff.  If you've ever come around here before you can't help but notice that I have two little ballet dancers, a couple of tappers, a jazz and lyrical jazz dancer or two, a swimmer, a volleyball player, two girl scouts, and I'm probably forgetting some.  Yes, all of that in the form of two tiny little girls.

Today I'll just be showing off my swimmer Bug kid.  A couple of weeks ago she had her first big meet and boy was she great.

She swam two mornings in a row, 3 events each day.  This was her first time and she was thrown right in.  The kids are expected to know where they need to be, when they need to be there.  The meet doesn't stop once it has begun.  One event (some with many many heats) is run right after another.  Also, no parents on the pool deck so us moms can't be helping them get where they need to go, when they need to go there.  Bug didn't miss a step though, not even in a room with hundreds of swimmers all moving and talking and swimming at once.

Here's Bug swimming her 100scy (short course yards) Freestyle.  For a kid who has only really been swimming for a year or so, she has great form.  She also did the 50y Free.

Here's the little sweetie Bug dipping her feet in the warm-up pool.  She was very patiently waiting to swim her 100y IM (Individual medley).

Bug is pretty slow in the Breast Stroke but she went for it in the 100y IM and the 50y breast anyway.  I was a very proud Mommy.  She was DQ'd for each but that was to be expected.  She hasn't had much time practicing how to get her breast and butterfly rhythm correct or how to turn and touch at the end.  On top of that, Bug hadn't ever jumped off the blocks until the warm-ups for this meet.  She's a big, brave Bug.

Backstroke is Bug's best stroke and she competed in the 50 and 100y back.  It was so much fun to watch.  Meets can get pretty boring in between the heats your kid is in but it still made for a great weekend.  The next meet is Valentine's Day weekend and we are looking forward to it.  There's just one problem...

...Bug was diagnosed last week with anterior tibialis tendinitis.  

She is supposed to rest for 2 weeks which means no dance and no swim training that involves her feet.  Her coach has her doing dry deck arm and core work and next week she will be swimming with a pull buoy so that she won't be using her legs or feet at all.  We'll see how it goes.

I Finished Something!!

I recently posted a review, on Craft Critique, of a product I got at CHA this summer.  Now that it is nearly time for CHA winter I thought I should show you what I made.

I made these yoga socks for Bug on my Clover 9" circular needle.  Go take a look at my review.  As you can see, I love this knitting needle! 

I do pretty well with the magic loop method.  I'm even relatively good with two circs.  I just can't seem to get good at DPNs at all.  With just one short needle I can whip up a project so fast that even my short attention span doesn't run out before it is finished.  Shocking isn't it?

Can you see Bug's cute little chill bumps up there?  What a great foot model I have.  She'll roll up her pants and go out in the cold with me for a photo shoot.  She is getting a really cool pair of socks out of the deal.  At least I think they are.

These are knit with Knit Picks sock yarn that is so old that they don't have anything like it on their website anymore.  It's close to this though.

I made up the pattern myself.  It's basically just a tube.  I knit some 1x1 rib, then switched to 4x1 rib.  Then I knit another section of 1x1 rib and I cast off half of the stitches in the middle of the section and cast them back on in the next round.  When I switched back to the 4x1 rib I threw in a few K2tog.  A little more 1x1 rib and I was ready to cast off.

Aren't they cute on my little dancer Bug?  She's most excited to have socks she can wear with her flip flops.  She wants to wear new Croc flip flops no matter how cold it is outside.  Silly girl.

B00!

If you live in my neighborhood, LOOK AWAY!!!!

We got this cute little bag and card delivered to our door last night.  It's a BOO.  In our neighborhood people leave treats on each others porches at Halloween.  The people who receive the "Boo"s then make their own treats and pass the fun on to another family.  This is all done in secret and is great fun for all the kids.  We will put the ghost that came in our bag on our front door so everyone will know that we have had our treats and somebody else is waiting for a surprise.

The funny thing about getting our Boo last night is that we had nearly finished making Boos of our own to start things off.  Now we're ready to pass on the fun.  The Girlies and I made chocolate pretzel rods, cookies, and mummymallows.  I'll let the fun pictures speak for themselves.

This is the sign our victims will hang up in order to tell others they have already been BOO'd and the poem to explain what is going on.

I used Martha Stewart's new tinsel glitter to "liven" up my ghost and BOO a little.

Orange hot chocolate, can you stand it?  So cute!

The Girlies picked out pencils and buttons to include too.  They are excited to see the people they Boo'd in secret using their pencils in class.  What are the odds they won't give themselves away?

Here it is, all bundled up and ready to be left on someone's front porch.  We put all the goodies in a halloween sand bucket.  The kids will deliver under the cover of darkness tonight.

iPhone Thursday - Did I make you wait long enough?

Thank you for waiting so patiently to hear who won the KLUTZ books.  I was waiting to tell you until I had gotten the delivery of their books all set up with KLUTZ.  Now that the books are on the way I can announce that Stacie, Wendi, and Brittany won the fun little books.  They should arrive on Monday and I can't wait to hear what they think of them.

Now for a little iPhone Thursday action, today we have Video! This is Bug in Tuesday's "mini-meet". She recently joined the swim team (which is amazing since she was scared to get in the water a year ago) and had her first competition this week. The coaches are amazed at her strength, from all the dancing, so are working hard to teach her the strokes fast so they can get her competing against kids outside her own team. This mini-meet is just for kids on the city wide swim team. In this video Bug is swimming her first ever race. It's the 25meter Freestyle and she is in the middle lane.

Did you notice that Bug totally killed the other kids? She's so amazing. She went on to win the 25m Backstroke as well, which she taught herself. Then she placed 3rd in her final race which was the 25m Breaststroke. She had only done a single lap of breaststroke in her life before that competition.  I'm a pretty proud Mommy, as you can imagine.

While Bug has been swimming, Bitty has been playing volleyball.  She's tiny and sometimes has a hard time serving the ball over the net.  At the same time, she is more into the game and practice than any other kid on the team.  She LOVES it and you can tell in everything she does.  It's amazing.

So my next post will be about my whirlwind week with Provocraft.  Right now it's time to head to the school library for a little book shelving.

My kids are KLUTZes too

This is Bitty's fairy from the Paper Fashions Fairy book I told you about last week.  I learned two things from working on this with her.  One, 8 year olds will make each individual piece a different color and pattern if you let them.  Most of the time they don't care if these colors and patterns look good together.  Two, 8 year olds may have a hard time visualizing what they are doing if you try to help them draw their stencils on the back of the patterned paper to avoid the pencil lines showing.

This is Bug's "Mermaid Fairy Waitress".  I learned a couple of things working with her as well.  One, 10 year olds will also put as many colors and patterns as possible together but at least this 10 year old will stress over what goes together and what doesn't.  They may not end up making the right call on this.  Two, 10 year olds are old enough to understand the concept of mirror image when it comes to drawing on the back and flipping and also making one glove stencil work for both right and left hand gloves.

I also have a word of warning to any of you who might use this with your kids...  Kids love glitter glue.  This little bit of trouble (it's both glue and glitter, how can that not be a problem on occasion?) is outweighed by the fact that my kids have spent HOURS just playing with the stencils.  They love drawing different fashion ideas on plain typing paper over and over.  It's wonderful to see how their imagination has been sparked.

Bug actually liked this so much that she spent her own money to buy this...

Now they can mix and match their stencils and papers.  Oh, and more glitter glue!!!

Don't forget that if you want to win your own Paper Fashions Fantasy book you need to comment with your email address to this post.

The Birthday Week

My Girlies have birthdays that are 8 days apart.  Right now we are in that 8 days in which they are 8 and 9.  It's a funny time.  We always seem to have a week of gifts instead of just one day each.  Not only that, but a week of cake, and the birthday song, and everything that goes along.  It will all be capped off by the giant carnival we are having at our house this weekend.  We're all very excited.  The only bad thing about the carnival...  I have more than you can imagine to get done.  So I'll leave you with this picture of my 8 and 9 year olds.

 

Birthday Carnage

Today Itty Bitty turns 8 and she has opened one gift so far.  One gift and this is what the family room looks like.

Why is this necessary?  I understand that the toy company just wants their product to look good on the shelf.  Really though, my 9 year old would have picked this for my 8 year old (did you see that?  They are 8 and 9 for eight days) no matter the amount of over packaging.  I have to admit though, we sure love cleaning all this crap up.  (damn, could you hear the sarcasm in that? I was trying to hide it)

Speaking of 8 year olds...

 

Here is my, new to the world of eightness, kid talking on the phone for half an hour to her friend who lives just down the street.  If you'll look closely you'll notice that she's talking on MY phone.  (No, we didn't buy the kid who is 8 an iPhone for her birthday, as much as she may have wanted one)

If you're wondering, yes she is wearing socks that don't match.  Her socks almost never match, she's my daughter after all.

Back(packs) to School

I didn't intend to take several days off from blogging this week but it's back to school week at our house.  Busy busy.

 

Here's Bug on the first day of school. Isn't she gorgeous?  The girls had a really good first day, and second day too.  I had a frustrating first day.

 

See these cute rolling backpacks from Pottery Barn Kids?  Yeah, they suck.  One problem which isn't entirely their fault is the size.  They are meant to be rather standard sized backpacks but they won't hold a standard sized 3 ring binder.  Both of the Girlies are required to have binders this year.  The other problem is with Bitty's backpack.  One day of use and one of the zippers has blown and I can't get it to go back.  I'm very bummed because they are so cute, rollie, and embroidered with their names.  Oh well, I have already bought new, Jansport, backpacks.  Jansport is what Buster and I carried all the way through Baylor and we love them.

This is Bug's

 

This one for Bit.

 

The girls seem to like these backpacks just fine and their binders fit so we are all good until they have to start carrying their books home.  Speaking of books, check out all the books the 4th graders have.

 

They girls never fail to beg me to carry their bags when we walk.  Yuck.

 

Bitty is the queen of the funny face.  I can't believe she is big enough for 3rd grade.

It's in the Details

I love my daughters, my Girlies.  I love Bitty's sweet little voice.  I love Bug's over-sensitive loving nature.

 

They are both so very beautiful in every tiny little way.  Strong little girls turn into strong women, or at least that is my plan.

 

Good luck on your first day of school to my third and fourth grader.  I love you.